Irq Air buys Boeing in US$6Bn contract - Iraq Air has connections to ex Dyn Corp CEO with US$1.2 Bn beef with INL

Iraqi Airways is the national carrier airline of Iraq and is one of the oldest in the Middle East. It was established in 1945 in Baghdad.

The Iraqi Aviation Program (IAP) created Air Iraq to establish a reliable airline for the people of Iraq and its future government. Air Iraq will ultimately be handed over to the new Iraqi government, after which the government will decide as to whether Air Iraq should remain nationalized or undergo privatization.

It currently operates domestic and regional services and is a member of the Arab Air Carriers Organization- they will shortly commence weekly direct flights between Washington, DC, (BWI) to Baghdad International airport at US$1,800 a seat.

Boeing have just announced that Iraq Air will buy 40 assorted pasenger aircraft in a US$6 Bn. contract and will re-open several airways between Baghdad and a number of Arab and foreign countries.

The Iraqi deputy transport minister Bankin Rikani told Aswat al-Iraq, Voices of Iraq, (VOI) that Iraqi Airways will receive the planes in 2013 and 2014.

Rubar S. Sandi, Chairman/Founder/Government Relations has spent many years in the US and worked for a long time with IBM. He is head of the Sandi group.

The State Department asked Mr. Sandi to join each of the working groups to review plans for Iraq's renaissance--post Saddam. He is the author of Phoenix Plan and many papers for the future of Iraq mainly on the subjects of post-Saddam economic policy, fiscal and monetary policy, banking, private sector initiatives and privatization, to name a few.

"I am a businessman", says Mr Sandi , "and businessmen cannot be dreamers£ . My father used to say he adds , "The greatest risk in business is not to take a calculated risk."

Emine E. Cetinkaya is listed as a Director she is also President of the Sandi Group and is also Mrs Sandi. She received her Bachelor's of Science degree in finance and international business from Georgetown University in Washington, DC. and an MBA degree in international business from Johns Hopkins University.

Another member of the Sandi Group board is Stephen J. Cannon, President & CEO of TSG Technical Services, Inc.Prior to joining The Sandi Group, Mr. Cannon was the President and CEO of DynCorp International, LLC (DynCorp) and a member of its Board of Directors, where he was responsible for managing its US $2.1Bn. business (96% from US Government) and 14,000 employees in 30 countries worldwide.

DynCorp have been criticised for many aspects of their work including sex trafficking. The latest is a report in November 2007 that the U.S. State Department is unable to account for most of $1.2 billion in funding that it gave to DynCorp International to train Iraqi police, a government report said on October 23rd 2007.

The Department of State's Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) "did not have the information needed to identify what DynCorp provided under the contract or how funds were spent," the report said. (Reuters)

"The bottom line is that State can't account for where it went," said Glenn D. Furbish, who was involved in putting together the 20-page report for the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction (SIGIR).

Invoices and supporting paperwork submitted by DynCorp "were in disarray," the report said.
In addition, INL "had not validated the accuracy" of invoices received prior to last October, and

"INL does not know specifically what it received for most of the $1.2 billion in expenditures under its DynCorp contract for the Iraqi Police Training Program."

see also Common Dreams for information about DI work on Katrine, Stephen Cannon's explanation
and more about their modus operandi.